You know, bbq doesn’t have to be all about steaks and chops and rotisserie cooking and all that fancy stuff. Sometimes, getting back to basics is a nice treat. On Sunday, I decided to do what I consider “Kid Food”…..burgers, hot dogs, beanie weenies and mac n cheese. Needless to say, our 16 yo DS was tickled pink! LOL

I had 1 1/2 lbs ground chuck and 2 packs of hotdogs, one regular bun length and one all beef. The Mac N Cheese was the old faithful, Kraft and the beanie weenies were made with pork and beans, 3 weenies I cooked in an iron skillet and sliced about 1/2 inch thick, some catsup, mustard, grape jelly, salt and pepper, brown sugar all added till it tasted right. 🙂 Yeah, I’m not real big on official measures when I’m cooking.

I got the grill fired up

and then set it up for indirect cooking with the coals against the back of the WS. I cooked the burgers at about 250 for 10 minutes, flipped them and basted with melted butter, cooked another 10 minutes, flipped and basted again and put on the hot dogs. I cooked everybody for another 10 minutes, then took off the burgers, slapped a slice of cheese on 2 of them cuz I like cheeseburgers, finished the hot dogs directly over the coals, moved them back to indirect and started toasting up the buns. It looked like this toward the end:

When all was said and done, the burgers and dogs looked like this:

The buns looked like this:

The Mac N Cheese:

And finally, the beanie weenies:

A burger dressed with lettuce, tomato,onion, mayo and mustard (cheese burger for me), a hot dog with mayo, mustard and catsup, a big spoon of beanie weenies, and a nice helping of Mac N Cheese. Truly, a meal fit for a kid……no matter how old they are! LOL

Got my slab of pork baby back ribs rubbed last night and ready to go. This morning, I got up about 8:30, fixed up the old Weber Silver (WS) with the Smokenator and the IQ100 and fired that sucker up, set at 250 degrees. I took the ribs out when I started setting up and let them warm a bit.

When the WS was at 250, I slapped the ribs on. Now, ya’ll gotta realize that I’m getting into some kinda high tech (at least for me) bbq techniques. I am using the IQ110 for temperature control. It has a nice little probe that goes into the pit and attaches to the grill to monitor the temp of the grill and work with the fan on the IQ110. Also, I’m using a Maverick thermometer which has a probe for the grill plus a probe for monitoring meat temp. Add in the Smokenator and it’s an awesome bbq system (no, you don’t have to have all this stuff. It was combined birthday, Father’s Day and Christmas presents to me. I’ve cooked outstanding ribs without all the gadgets. So can you!). Here’s what it looks like with the ribs just starting:

About a week before I started my blog here, I tried cooking a couple of slabs of ribs, using the WS and the Smokenator. Six hours later, they were still kind of tough, so I finished them in the oven. When I had my old Outdoor Kitchen keg cooker, I was able to get them done in about 2 hours. Tender, juicy, high and fast. I did a bit of research and talked with a friend and co-worker and came to conclusion I needed to “foil” the ribs (aka Texas Crutch) to get them really tender and juicy.

Today I put them on the WS, meat side up, for 1 hour after getting the Smokenator and IQ110 going. Then I flipped them and let them go another hour after adding more water to the Smokenator. I got a double layer of foil for each of the 2 mini-slabs and put the ribs in (of course, something had to go wrong. I didn’t have any wide foil nor did I have any apple juice, but Sweetie went out and braved the insanity at our local supermarket and came home with both of them. Thanks tons, Sweetie! Love ya!).

I squirted a little Sweet Baby Ray’s regular bbq sauce on top and folded it all in the foil and closed it tightly except for one end. I poured in about 1/2 C of Apple Juice into each through the open end and then sealed the last end good. I put both rib sections back on the WS for an hour and a half (more water in the Smokenator). I checked them at 1 hour and they weren’t quite as tender as I wanted, so I let them go another 30 minutes after adding water to the Smokenator.

After 90 minutes in the Texas Crutch, I took them out and placed them back onto the grill, yep, more water into the Smokenator. I flipped them at 15 minute intervals for the next hour. No additional sauce was put on them. The water in the Smokenator kept the humidity inside the WS high and the ribs moist.

While the ribs were finishing off, I got my 2nd WS ready for indirect grilling and put on a few links of my pure pork Cajun smoked sausage, a seasoned chicken breast, a ribeye steak with Outback seasoning, and 4 kaftas. Kafta is a middle eastern dish, usually made with ground lamb and Middle Eastern spices. I used regular ground beef instead of lamb. I flipped all the stuff on the 2nd WS at 15 minute intervals, too. I put the kafta over the coals to cook. The rest was laid out all over the cooler part of the grill.

Just before the ribs came out of the Texas Crutch, I fixed up a little bowl of bbq baked beans, some dirty rice (used both ground beef and chicken livers since it was my day! LOL) and some deviled eggs. I also sliced off a hunk of French bread, sliced it about 1/2″ thick and buttered and garlic powdered a little over half of it (Sweetie doesn’t do butter), wrapped it tightly in foil and set it aside. When the 2nd WS stuff was about 15 minutes from being done (3 flips), I put the bread over the coals on top of the kaftas. I did the steak and chicken via reverse sear. The sausage I just let warm up and cook. I didn’t have a thermometer to see how hot the 2nd WS was, but it was probably medium heat…400 or so.

When all was said and done, the ribs looked like this: and the rest of the meat looked like this:

Plated out with the beans, dirty rice, deviled eggs and garlic bread, it looked like this:

Sweetie only had one critique, “Don’t you change a THING! This is PERFECT!” Wow! That blew me away. Then I tried some. Sweetie was absolutely right! The ribs were juicy and so full of flavor they didn’t need any bbq sauce. The steak and chicken were juicy and tender. The kaftas were nicely spiced and a good addition. The sausage…..well, the sausage is outta this world, even if I say so myself (yeah, I make it myself and cold smoke it myself. LOL)

The beans, dirty rice, deviled eggs and garlic bread were the perfect sides for this meal.

Oh yeah, we finished off with a home made Cajun chocolate poke cake with home made icing. Took about 45 minutes, start to finish. Oh my goodness! We never did get around to putting the Blue Bell ice cream on the cake, though. LOLOL

During the cooking, which lasted from 9:30 AM to almost 4 PM, the temp outside went from 80 degrees to 108 degrees. That called for a bit of Johnny Walker Red Label scotch on the rocks with a splash of water, of course. OK, it called for several of them. 🙂

All in all, it was a darn good Father’s Day. And it wasn’t heresy this time! It was just darn good bbq.

Awright! A very special day for all us Dads. The perfect time to bbq and do it your way! 🙂

I’ve got a slab of baby back ribs all seasoned and marinating in the ice box overnight. A few pieces of my home made pure pork Cajun smoked sausage thawed out and ready, some ground beef for burgers and to go in my dirty rice, a few chicken livers for the dirty rice, some leftover ribeye and chicken breast I cooked at a friend’s place tonight and had leftovers, and maybe a pack of hot dogs if I can find them in the freezer. Some deviled eggs and bbq baked beans will round out the main courses with a nice home made Cajun-style home made chocolate cake and ice cream (Blue Bell, of course) for dessert.

Every once in a while, what seems to be a great idea turns out not so great. 😦

For weeks I’ve been plotting and planning on taking a really nice roast and putting it on the rotisserie and cooking it that way. I’ve thought of how to season it, how to wrap it so it’s round and will cook evenly, how to this and how to that. Today I figured a nice 3 lb ribeye roast on the rotisserie using the Smokenator 1000 and the IQ110 would be outstanding. Last night, I seasoned the roast and today I wrapped it in string so it was round and stuck it on the spit and put it in the Weber Silver at 300 degrees using the IQ110 to keep the temperature in line. I used a little bit of hickory wood and a little bit of mesquite wood for some smoke flavor.

2 1/2 hours later, the roast was done. I took it inside, let it rest and sliced it. We had some wild rice beef flavored and some caramelized fennel to go with it that was pretty darn good.

First thing I noticed was the drippings/gravy was pretty yucky. Too spicy and way too weak. Fortunately I hadn’t added it to the roast. Then I tried the roast. The fatty part was pretty bad. Too much of something and not enough of something else. I’m not exactly sure what, but it was not very good. The heart of the roast was better, but was still nowhere near what I was hoping.

It was edible, but definitely NOT one of my better dishes. I won’t be fixing that again.

OK, I survived my work trip! Whew! Now I’ve got time to do a post or 2.

Three of my favorite side dishes involve a good sized pot of boiling water: ‘Tater Salad, Mashed ‘Taters, and Deviled Eggs. I get a 2 fer 1 on the potato dishes plus the eggs get cooked at the same time.

It all starts with about 2 lbs of your favorite kind of ‘taters, scrubbed good and cut into 1″ cubes. Nope, I don’t peel ’em. I put those into a pot of warm-from-the-tap water with a generous bit of salt and pepper, turn the heat on high and let ‘er rip till the water boils. Usually, I’ll gently place 4-6 whole eggs into the pot with the potatoes at the start. I let everything boil until the potatoes are fork tender. By then, the eggs are done, too.

When the water first begins to boil, I take a bunch of ice and put it into a sink with about 4″ of water in it. I add ice till it some of it stays ice.

Dump the whole pot gently into a colander and let it drain (NOT into the sink with the hot water!). Fish out the eggs and put them into the ice water (don’t crack them yet!).

First, the ‘Tater Salad. Take about 1/2 the ‘taters and put them in a bowl. Add about 1/2 C mayo (I use Miracle Whip cuz I like it!), a couple of tsp prepared yellow mustard, salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste and a couple of Tbsp pickle relish (either sweet or dill, all depends on what you like). Mash this all together with a ‘tater masher or a big fork, stir it around and around until it gets to the consistency you like…either chunky, smooth or in-between. Give it a taste and add whatever it needs, more mayo, more mustard, more relish, more salt, pepper or garlic powder, whatever it needs. REMEMBER: You can add more seasoning, but you can’t take it out after it’s added! Either put the ‘tater salad into the fridge or serve it warm, whichever you like best. If you want to get real fancy, dust the top with paprika, cut a few olives into rings and put on the top and/or put some sliced boiled egg on the top. Yummy plus looks good! 🙂

For Mashed ‘Taters, take the rest of the ‘taters and put them into an oven-safe bowl. Add 1/2 C milk (or cream), salt, pepper, garlic powder and 2 Tbsp room temp butter. Take a ‘tater masher and mash them good to whatever consistency you like.. Take a taste and add more of whatever needs to be added. When you’re satisfied with the taste and consistency, put them into a 200 degree oven, covered with foil or a lid. Serve warm. If you want to get fancy, stir in about 1/2 C fresh or 2 Tbsp dry parsley to make Parsley Mashed ‘Taters. Serve with gravy or by themselves.

Deviled Eggs are about my favorite side dish with bbq. Remember those eggs you’ve got soaking in the ice water? Well, now’s the time to use them! Take one, crack it allllllllllll over and remove the shell carefully. If you’ve done things right, there’s a membrane inside the shell that will peel right off, taking the pieces of the shell with it. If you haven’t done things right, remember to look around to see who is gonna hear your cursing when you try to get the shell off! :O

Once you’ve got all the eggs peeled, cut them in half long-ways and gently remove the yolks into a small bowl, keeping the halves from breaking or tearing. Add 2 heaping Tbsp mayo (again, I use Miracle Whip), a tsp prepared yellow mustard, salt, pepper and garlic salt and a tsp of your favorite pickle relish. If you added sweet relish to your ‘tater salad, then use dill relish and vice-versa just for the contrast. Smash everything up really good, stir it around and give it a taste. Add more of whatever you think it needs. Then stuff the empty egg halves with the yolk mixture. I just use a teaspoon and a clean fingertip for this. Again, sprinkle with paprika if you want to get fancy. If you want to get REALLY fancy, take a little slice of black truffle and put on top of each half (you can get some from Amazon. Heck, you can get almost ANYTHING at Amazon! LOL), I usually cover the plate with eggs on them with plastic wrap (or use a deviled egg holder) and put the eggs into the ice box and let them cool until the rest of the meal is ready. NOTE: Do NOT forget the eggs in the ice box and not serve them with the meal. Don’t ask how I know this! 🙂

That’s it for now. I’ve got a Ribeye Roast on the rotisserie now that I’ve got to check. I’ll post how I cooked that later.

Friday night was pizza night (boy, is this ever a simple sentence for how much work it was! LOL)

OK, I’ve been mentioning pizza cooked on the bbq grill. Heresy? You bet! 🙂 And I’m PROUD of it!

Home made pizza at our place takes a bit of time and pre-preparation work. I started Wednesday night, making the crusts. I made both a 65% hydration crust and a Neapolitan crust. What’s the difference? I’ll post the recipes for both in my recipe section in a bit so you can see or you can exercise your Google-fu to find out if you can’t wait. I refrigerate the dough for a few days, then lay it out on the cabinet to warm up. Details later. 🙂

While the dough was warming, I went outside to get the bbq ready. First I got the Kettle Pizza accessory. and added a top grill that I wrapped in foil The foil helps reflect the heat that would usually go all the way up to the top of the dome of the Weber Silver (WS) down to the top of the pizza. This makes the toppings brown at the same time the bottom crust cooks.

I fired up the coals for the WS, let them get covered with ash and fire coming out of the chimney, then dumped them into the WS on the coal grate. I moved the coals to the back side and put on the Kettle Pizza and the WS top. While that was heating up, I started working with the dough.

Like I said earlier, I started the dough Wednesday night. After letting the dough rise per the recipe, I rolled them around and made discs out or them then oiled them up good, put each into a gallon ziplock bag and stuck them in the ice box. They sat in there until about 3 PM Saturday, fermenting away and getting all gooey and poofy from the yeast doing it’s thing (this always makes me think of Alton Brown’s burping yeast sock puppets from his show Good Eats….which also has been cancelled by Food Network…another BUMMER!).

I took the 2 dough discs out and divided them up. The Neapolitan I divvied into 4 8 ounce balls (total of around 30–32 oz dough) and the 65% I divvied into 3 10 oz balls (same amount of dough). I squeezed and kneaded each one for about 1 minute, then set it onto a floured piece of foil. After doing all 7 dough balls, I covered them with a dish towel and let them sit for another 1 1/2 hours.

When the dough balls were up to room temp and had done a final rise, I took one and pressed and rolled it into a pizza skin. Here’s the initial ball of dough (teaspoon for size comparison) and the skin. Next was putting the sauce on the skin. I used a bottle of commercial sauce with a can of diced tomatoes with basil, oregano and garlic that I drained well. This is standard for all the pizzas. I’ve found that putting the skin on the pizza peel which has had cornmeal spread lightly over it works best. Then top, shake gently to loosen so it slides off onto the stone. The peel is 12″ wide, so you get an idea of how much you get from one dough ball.

From here on out, the sky is the limit! Cheese of your choice, toppings of your choice, it all works good! Only thing, don’t put on too thick a layer of sauce and toppings or it won’t cook right. For the Bunny, I made a simple pepperoni pizza with fresh grated mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Ended up looking like this

Once the pizza was ready, it was time to check the cooker. It was up to normal temp which is 450 degrees. Now it’s time for the really hot part! I have some small chunks of pecan wood set aside in a wagon I take a few chunks (teaspoon for size comparison) and put them directly on the coals (gotta lift off the entire Kettle Pizza setup and replace it) and add the pizza stone to the cooker After just a few minutes, the thermometer on the Kettle Pizza has pegged at over 700 Degrees!! Now that’s approaching the temps the pizza parlors use for their pizzas…..or a bit more than some of them. I’ve got a handheld laser/infrared thermometer I use to check the pizza stone temp. When it’s about 650 degrees F or better, it’s time to put on the pizzas.

The pizza can either go in directly on the pizza stone or it can be in a pizza pan that goes onto the stone; Directly on the stone, the crust cooks quickest and tends to get those lovely bubbles in them. On the pan, they both cook about the same and the crust doesn’t bubble as much.

At these screaming hot temps, I put the pizza in, give it about 1 1/2 minutes, turn it 180 degrees, another 1 1/2 minutes, turn 90 degrees, thirty seconds, turn 180 degrees for thirty seconds and that’s it! By then the crust has wonderful browning marks on the bottom, the cheese is bubbling and the top of the crust sometimes has bubbles in it. Incredible in only 4 minutes!! Hmm, wonder why it takes most pizza parlors the better part of 30 minutes to get a pizza ready?? If the heat is really REALLY up there, like over 700 degrees, It only takes about 3 minutes for them to cook!

I wanted to take a pic of Bunny’s pizza when it was done, but I turned my back for about one minute and he and his buddy scarfed it all down! OK, they didn’t eat it all in one minute, but they grabbed the pieces and put em on plates and left an empty pizza peel! LOL

Next I fixed Sweetie her favorite, Hawaiian with pepperoni, Canadian bacon, pineapple chunks and very light cheese. Here’s what it looked like before and after: Note: I have to add more hardwood after each pizza. It really burns up fast at these temperatures!

Me, I like a Supreme Pizza. Cheese, hamburger, Italian sausage, pepperoni, green olives, onion, bell pepper, bacon, anchovies and hot peppers. It looked like this before and after: